New Book III Excerpt: The Sentinel

Excerpt of Where Flap the Tatters of the King, The Order of the Four Sons, Book III, by Coyote Kishpaugh & Lauren Scharhag

Alyssa had discovered the wooded area wasn’t all that deep, perhaps sixty yards. Up ahead, she glimpsed a clearing, and started to move toward it when a dark figure seemed to rise up out of the twilight, obscuring her vision. With a small gasp, she halted.

She stared at the creature ahead of her, trying to make out what it was. Definitely not human, judging by the enormous size of its frame. The head wasn’t visible above the branches of the trees. All she could see was the outline of a broad torso, the pair of muscular arms at its sides. Motionless, she waited. There was no sound but the skeletal rustlings of the sleeping forest, the whisper of snow swirling into drifts. The creature didn’t move. It simply stood in the wind and snow, a shadow in the glade. She took a cautious step forward. Then another.

Sensing no danger, she moved with a little more confidence, but when she reached the edge of the woods, she paused again. Darkness had fallen. Without the cover of trees, the wind whipped at her skirt. Wet droplets stung her face. Squinting, she held her hair back away from her eyes.

Now she could see that the figure was a statue, sixteen feet tall, buried almost up to its knees in snow. Tilting her head back to better examine it, she saw the great horned head, the smooth, broad shoulders. A minotaur, carved out of some sort of highly polished, black stone. She walked around it, taking in the detailed carvings: the texture of the horns, the sculpted nostrils, the nude, virile body. It stood at attention, its fierce eyes fixed on some point in the distance. There was no danger from a statue, of course. But there was something about it all the same, something deeply disquieting. Why did she think it seemed to be waiting—for her?

Backing away from it, she sensed a great expanse opening up behind her and turned. For the second time, she sucked in her breath, immediately understanding why the minotaur was there, in the middle of a clearing. It wasn’t a clearing at all, but the edge of a bluff. 

There, spread out in the valley below, was the Capital. He was its sentinel. 

If you haven't discovered the O4S-verse yet, it's never too late. Check out Book I here.